Dallas County AlArchives Biographies.....Pitts, Philip Henry January 27 1849 - living in 1893
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Author: Brant & Fuller (1893)
PHILIP HENRY PITTS, one of the most prominent of the able lawyers of Selma,
Ala., was born upon a plantation three miles east of Union-town, Perry county,
Ala., January 27, 1849. His father, Philip Henry Pitts, was a planter by
vocation, and was a native of Caroline county, Va., whence he came to Alabama in
1835, accompanying his parents, who thus became early settlers of Perry county.
The father of Phillip Henry, Jr., remained as a resident of Perry county until
his death, which occurred when he was sixty-eight years of age. He married Miss
Margaret Davidson, of Mecklenburgh county, N. C., who bore him ten children. She
is descended from the well-known Davidson family of Mecklenburgh county, N. C.,
which played an important part in the adoption of the Mecklenburgh declaration
of independence, and still survives. Philip Henry Pitts was reared in Uniontown,
Ala., and received his early scholastic training at Prof. Tutwiler's Green
Springs school. In September, 1863, he entered the university of Alabama, but
left the university to enlist, March 10, 1864, in Capt. Sharley's company of
cadets. After a service in the army of four months, his father, thinking it best
to take his fifteen-year-old boy out of the service, sent him to the above-named
school, and he remained there three years. In 1868 he was sent to Davidson
college, N. C., from which institution of learning he graduated in 1871. For one
year thereafter he taught school at Uniontown. Ala., and during this year he
took up the study of the law. At the end of the year he entered the law office
of Hon. J. H. Bush, under whose guidance he continued the study of law until the
fall of 1874, when at that term of the circuit court he was admitted to the bar.
He at once formed a co-partnership in the practice of the law with Mr. Bush, his
preceptor, the firm of Bush & Pitts continuing until 1878, in the fall of which
year Mr. Pitts was appointed by J. N. Suttle, solicitor for the-fourth district
of Alabama, as solicitor for Perry county. In 1880 Mr. Pitts was elected, by the
general assembly of the state, to the office of solicitor for the fourth
district of Alabama, and he was re-elected by the general assembly in December,
1886. He has thus held the position of solicitor for fourteen years, and during
this time in this position he has displayed marked ability as a lawyer and
advocate. In January, 1891, a co-partnership in the practice of the law was
formed with Col. N. H. R. Dawson, of Selma, to which city Mr. Pitts had removed
in January, 1889. The law firm thus formed, of Dawson & Pitts, is regarded as
one of the ablest and strongest in the state, and has a large and steadily
increasing clientage. Mr. Pitts has played a prominent part in the politics of
his state, being active in each local and general campaign, as an ardent and
zealous democrat. He is a member of the Knights of Pythias, and he is-also
prominent in the Presbyterian church. Mr. Pitts has been married twice. In 1872
he married Miss Amanda McLean, of Lincoln county, N. C. She died in May, 1889,
leaving five children. In October, 1890, he married Miss Marie Byrd, daughter of
the late Judge William M. Byrd, a distinguished lawyer and jurist of Selma, Ala.
Additional Comments:
from "Memorial Record of Alabama", Vol. I, p. 906, 909
Published by
Brant & Fuller (1893)
Madison, WI
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